SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Consun Pharma (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Consun Pharma is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Consun Pharma can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Consun Pharma, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Consun Pharma operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Consun Pharma can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Consun Pharma
2. Improving business portfolio management of Consun Pharma
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Consun Pharma
Strengths of Consun Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Consun Pharma are -
Analytics focus
– Consun Pharma is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The technology infrastructure of Hong Kong is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Training and development
– Consun Pharma has one of the best training and development program in Healthcare industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Consun Pharma is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Consun Pharma is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Consun Pharma are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Consun Pharma has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Consun Pharma have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Consun Pharma has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Consun Pharma has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Consun Pharma digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Consun Pharma has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Consun Pharma comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Innovation driven organization
– Consun Pharma is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Consun Pharma has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Consun Pharma staying ahead in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Consun Pharma has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Consun Pharma to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Consun Pharma | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Consun Pharma are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Consun Pharma needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Consun Pharma, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Consun Pharma has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ less understanding of Consun Pharma strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Consun Pharma don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Consun Pharma needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Consun Pharma can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Consun Pharma is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Consun Pharma needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Consun Pharma, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Biotechnology & Drugs industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Consun Pharma has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Consun Pharma has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Consun Pharma is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Consun Pharma needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Consun Pharma to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Consun Pharma is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Consun Pharma to provide better information regarding Biotechnology & Drugs products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Consun Pharma ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Consun Pharma still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Biotechnology & Drugs industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Consun Pharma has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Consun Pharma Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Consun Pharma are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Consun Pharma is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Consun Pharma can utilize new technology in the field of Biotechnology & Drugs industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Consun Pharma can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Consun Pharma can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Consun Pharma can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Consun Pharma can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Consun Pharma operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Consun Pharma to increase its market reach. Consun Pharma will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Consun Pharma to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Consun Pharma in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Consun Pharma has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Consun Pharma has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Consun Pharma to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Consun Pharma to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Consun Pharma can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Consun Pharma in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Consun Pharma can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Consun Pharma has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can help Consun Pharma to build a more holistic ecosystem for Consun Pharma products in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Consun Pharma can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Threats Consun Pharma External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Consun Pharma are -
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Consun Pharma business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Consun Pharma in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Consun Pharma has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Consun Pharma needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Consun Pharma demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Biotechnology & Drugs industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Consun Pharma
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Consun Pharma.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Consun Pharma can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Consun Pharma needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry regulations.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Consun Pharma will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Consun Pharma is facing in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Consun Pharma needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Consun Pharma can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Consun Pharma needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Consun Pharma Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Consun Pharma needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Consun Pharma is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Consun Pharma is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Consun Pharma to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Consun Pharma needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.